//-------------------------------------------------------// The fire speaks to me -by Techy- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// The flames of destiny //-------------------------------------------------------// The flames of destiny "I can't believe it!" I said to myself while putting on my costume, "My first convention... This will rock!" "Hurry up!" Dave yelled from downstairs. "Just give me a moment!" I yelled back, "It's not my fault that this costume is really tight!" "Yes it is! You made it!" Alex replied, "Now hurry up and get down here so we can see it!" I hurried and zipped my black suit up before buttoning the light brown coat that I had on. After checking the mirror one last time, I put my skull mask on and walked down the stairs. "So guys, how do I look?" I asked my friends, "Am I missing anything?" "Nice, man. Although, you are missing one important thing." Dave replied with a smile. "What is it?" "Duh," Alex said while rolling his eyes, "You forgot your gun." He then handed me a fake revolver with incredible details on it. "You don't think I'm gonna get kicked out for having this do you?" I asked with concern. Dave just started walking towards the front door, "Maybe, but it looks awesome, doesn't it?" "Yeah, I guess it does. They'll probably just check to see if it's real, right?" Alex started pushing me out the door, "Yeah, sure, whatever. But we need to leave now or we'll never get there!" "Alright, jeez. Don't get your tights in a bunch." I replied while locking my front door and hopping in Dave's car. Alex glared at me before putting his mask on, "You and me both know that Deadpool is awesome whether he wears tights or not!" I just chuckled at him while Dave started his car. We were then finally on our way to Comic-con. "Ugh, this is taking forever." Alex moaned, "How did you lose your helmet?!" "Shut up!" Dave angrily replied while searching through his trunk, "I know it's back here somewhere!" I decided to help him look, so I started digging with him until finally I saw a bit of green poking out, "I think I found it!" Dave saw the helmet after I pointed to it and he ripped it out. He then started inspecting every little bit of it to make sure that it was alright. "Alright, you have your helmet, can we go inside now?" Alex impatiently asked while tapping his foot. "Yeah... sorry about that, I just freaked out a bit." Dave replied, "You can't have a Master chief costume without the helmet." "Guys, come on! Let's get in there!" I yelled to them as I ran to the entrance. Alex and Dave started stumbling after me and we all raced towards the entrance. After taking a moment to go through a quick security check, we admired all the stands and shops selling stuff and all of the other cosplayers walking around. "Wow... this is awesome!" Dave said before giggling like an idiot. "Get a hold of yourself, we haven't even been in here for ten minutes and you're acting like a child." Alex replied in a joking manor. "Hey Alex, look, Deadpool stuff!" Dave said while pointing in a random direction. Alex suddenly started looking in the direction that Dave had pointed while yelling, "Oh my gosh, where?! Where?!" Both Dave and I started laughing like idiots at him while he just stood there annoyed. "Ok, he got you on that one." I said, "But seriously, we should probably make a plan." "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to go look around." Alex said while walking off. "Yeah, me too. I'm hoping to add to my Halo collection." Dave also said while walking off. "Um... but..." I stood there for a moment before yelling to them, "A-Alright, let's meet back here in an hour!" I could faintly here "Yeah" and "Whatever". Having nothing else to do, I walked towards the shopping area. As I walked past all of the shops, and the other people that were crowding the place, there was one spot that seemed to stick out. It was mostly because nobody was nearby, but the owner also seemed very shady. I walked up to him and asked, "What exactly do you sell here?" "Why, I'll sell you whatever you want," He responded with a smile, "In fact, I think what your costume needs is this little Beauty right here." He said before pulling out a nicely crafted gun, which of course was fake. I just stared at it before saying, "No thanks, I have my own." Before pulling out my revolver. "Oh... um... How about this antique ruby necklace?" He asked while pulling out a nice ruby necklace with a silver chain, "Or maybe some of these beautiful rings?" "No thanks, I don't need any jewelry." I said while secretly wondering what he would pull out next. "Really? Oh my... I have a crystal cat eye, an ankh or maybe you would like these boots?" The merchant desperately asked. "Still no on all of that. How did you even get this stuff?" I questioned. "Well, what do you want then?!" He asked while leaning closer the me. I decided to look at his merchandise for a moment longer before deciding, "I want that zippo lighter over there." "W-What? A lighter is all you want?!" He said with an incredible amount of disbelief on his face, "Alright fine, that will be thirty five dollars." I dug into my coat pockets to get my wallet and I fished out two twenties, "Here, you can keep the change. I was just messing with you that whole time." I ended with a laugh. "You know what?" The merchant agitatedly asked while grabbing the money. "What?" I asked in return while he grabbed the lighter. "That's not a very nice thing to do." He replied while grabbing a small bucket and tossing its contents onto me. "Ahh! What the hell man?!" I yelled before getting a good whiff of whatever was now on me, "Wait... was that gasoline?!" The merchant got a huge smile before saying, "You shouldn't do mean things to mean people..." He then took the zippo lighter that he was still holding, lit it and tossed it at me. I was too slow to react in time and the lighter hit me right in the chest before my whole body started catching. I was soon completely on fire and freaking out the whole time. Every bit of my body hurt worse than anything I've ever felt before, until I fell on the ground and my vision started fading. The last thing I could see was a crowd of people rushing toward me, including Dave and Alex. And the only thing I could hear the whole time was that psychopath merchant laughing like my death was the funniest thing he had ever seen. Finally after my vision was gone and the merchants laugh couldn't be heard anymore, a new voice showed up, "Welcome, young one. We will get acquainted soon enough, but for now you must rest." //-------------------------------------------------------// A spark of new life //-------------------------------------------------------// A spark of new life I knew that I was waking up because of the immense pain throughout my body and the bright light that was shining on my face. After a few moments of letting the pain fade, I decided to see what craptastic hospital I was probably sent to. "Ugh... Where am I?" I called out before breaking into a few raspy coughs, "Whatever you guys are giving me sure as hell ain't working." I finally opened my eyes and got into a sitting position. My eyes adjusted to the light before I realized that the thing I was laying on was defiantly not a hospital bed... And I was in a forest. "W-What... the... hell?" I mumbled while taking in the scenery, "Why am I in a forest..." I looked around a bit more as my brain started processing that something didn't feel right. "There was no way that all of that shit was some dream... That was a pain that you can't just dream up..." I told myself. I stood up and quickly realized that I still had my costume on. The weird thing was that I didn't feel like I was wearing anything. So, I undid my coat, but when I fully took it off I saw that the zipper for my black suit was completely gone. I started feeling around on my body to try and find the zipper, but no matter where I looked, it wasn't there. "Holy hell... What the fuck?!" I Yelled while my heart beat faster every second, "What the hell did that guy do to me?!" I then realized that my suit felt like skin... I was so scared that I could barely make coherent thoughts anymore. I grabbed my coat and put it back on before searching through every pocket on it with only one thought in my head, "I need help!". After searching for a moment, I found the fake gun that I had with me, but I didn't care about it at the moment, so I threw it to the side. I kept searching in my pockets until I found the only other thing there: the zippo lighter that I bought from the merchant. Pulling it out of my pocket, I stared at the accursed object in my hand. My heart beat slowed down a bit, but my mind kept racing. All I could think about was when the merchant tossed it at me. The way the fire spread across my body. All of the pain I felt from the burning while his demented laugh bounced around in my head... "Wait... does that mean I'm dead?" I questioned while coming out of my stupor, "If I'm dead, then what the hell happened to my body?!" I remembered that I also had my skull mask on, but just like my suit, when I tried to take it off I could feel that it was now a part of my body. The worst thing was that with my skull head I was able to stick my hand through my eye sockets and feel the inside of my head. The feeling definitely freaked me out more than I needed at the moment. "What the hell happened to me?! Where the hell are my friends?! AND WHY THE HELL AM I IN THIS FUCKING FOREST?!" I screamed to the sky at the top of my lungs. I decided to try and calm down so I could think about all of this. I lied down on the grass and started breathing slowing and deeply. After a few moments of forcing myself to stay completely still and to just breath, I was finally calm enough to think rationally about everything... "The best I can think of is aliens..." I mumbled to myself as I realized how stupid I was, "I really should have taken science class more serious. If I did then I would probably know what's happening..." I sat there trying to think of what type of fungus or disease this could possibly be, but by the time that I figured it must be something else, the sun had started setting. "Crap! I can't sleep in the woods," I said to myself while getting up, "I may be some abomination now, but I'd still like to sleep without getting mauled to death." I started getting up and remembered the lighter still in my hand and the fake gun I tossed to the ground earlier. After putting the lighter back in my pocket, I grabbed the gun from the ground. Something felt off about It though... It felt heavier than before and it had a more polished surface. I inspected it for a moment longer before accidentally popping out the chamber "No freaking way... This is a real gun!" I exclaimed, "There is something terribly wrong about this, but now I have some form of protection." I started off into the forest before it got any darker with my gun in my hands and my body tensed. I traveled for a while and could hear distant sounds from farther in the forest. Finally though, I found a way out of that dam spooky place. I made it to the clearing and took a few steps out, but before I could even realize that the sun was almost completely down, I saw a town ahead. I concealed my gun and rushed toward the town as the sun finally lowered under the mountains in the distance... is that a castle? "How is that thing being held up there?" I thought out loud while still running, "I can figure it out later, right now I need to focus on getting help." I continued heading towards the town as everything got darker with the nights approach. I could see a few distant things moving around. "Those must be people! I need to hurry!" I said out loud. I doubled my efforts to get to the town and soon I was close... close enough to see that the things from earlier were horses. After taking a moment to slow down I said to myself, "What the hell? Why is that one purple? And that one over there has a pink mane! What type of planet am I on?!" It was then that one of them looked in my direction with a shocked expression before somehow yelling, "Monster! Monster! Everypony run!" All of them then glanced at me before fleeing. Some of them ran into houses and some of them just didn't stop running, but either way, they wanted no part of me. I decided that I just needed to stop questioning things, like how colorful horses could yell, and to just roll along with it. So, I just kept walking. After a few minutes of strolling through the now dead silent town, I came across a large castle thing. With no other way to go, I walked up to the door and knocked... //-------------------------------------------------------// A flicker of hope //-------------------------------------------------------// A flicker of hope The knock seemed to be loud enough to get some type of reaction from the owners of the building. Some sounds came from inside that sounded like footsteps, but once they reached the door they stopped. A moment later, the door swung open to reveal... another horse. "I should have expected..." I said with a sigh, "Do you at least have the decency to not run away screaming in terror?" I looked down at the purple horse to see that it had both wings and a horn... and the horn was glowing... that's not good. The next thing I knew, I was knocked on my back and fell unconscious. When I woke up again, I quickly realized that something was tight around my leg. I sat up and looked to see that it was a shackle with a chain that led to a nearby wall. There were two other stone walls, a bed, a hole in the ground that was most likely supposed to be the toilet and one last wall that I recognized easily as jail cell bars. Already, I could tell that everything would go downhill from here. "Hello? Is someone there?" I called out, "Can somebody explain why I'm in jail?" With the sudden realization that everything could have been a dream, I checked my body. Sadly, I was still the abomination that I've grown accustomed to. I sat there for only a moment longer before a door opened nearby. Hoping that it was someone who might be able to answer my questions, I called out to them. "Hello? Who's there?" A moment passed before